Close to the cool highlands of the Snowy Mountains in South East
Australia, lies an enchanted secret world where a group of very special
creatures, the bare nosed or common wombats make their home. Shy and
elusive, the wombats may appear to be hidden from view – but this quiet
wood is alive with scenes of marsupial friendship, new life, burrow
hopping and wombat disagreements.

Type: Documentary

Languages: English

Status: Running

Runtime: 60 minutes

Premier: 2016-08-02

Secret Life of the Wombat - Diprotodon - Netflix

Diprotodon, meaning “two forward teeth”, is the largest known marsupial
to have ever lived. Along with many other members of a group of species
collectively known as the “Australian megafauna”, it existed from
approximately 1.6 million years ago until extinction some 46,000 years
ago (through most of the Pleistocene epoch). Diprotodon species fossils
have been found in sites across mainland Australia, including complete
skulls and skeletons, as well as hair and foot impressions. Female
skeletons have been found with babies located where the mother's pouch
would have been. The largest specimens were hippopotamus-sized: about 3
metres (9.8 ft) from nose to tail, standing 2 metres (6.6 ft) tall at
the shoulder and weighing about 2,790 kilograms (6,150 lb). Aboriginal
rock art images in Quinkan traditional country (Queensland, Australia)
have been claimed to depict diprotodonts. They inhabited open forest,
woodlands, and grasslands, possibly staying close to water, and eating
leaves, shrubs, and some grasses. The closest surviving relatives of
Diprotodon are the wombats and the koala. It is suggested that
diprotodonts may have been an inspiration for the legends of the bunyip,
as some Aboriginal tribes identify Diprotodon bones as those of
“bunyips”.

Secret Life of the Wombat - Human hunting - Netflix

The overkill theory is that human hunters killed and ate the
diprotodonts, causing their extinction. The extinctions appear to have
coincided with the arrival of humans on the continent, and in broad
terms, Diprotodon was the largest and least well-defended species that
died out. Similar hunting-out happened with the megafauna of New
Zealand, Madagascar and many smaller islands around the world (such as
New Caledonia, Cyprus, Crete and Wrangel Island), and at least in part,
in the Americas—probably within a thousand years or so. Recent finds of
Diprotodon bones which appear to display butchering marks lend support
to this theory. Critics of this theory regard it as simplistic, arguing
that (unlike New Zealand and America) there is little direct evidence of
hunting, and that the dates on which the theory rests are too uncertain
to be relied on. However, the high-resolution chronology of the changes
supports the hypothesis that human hunting alone eliminated the
megafauna.